Last October, Plan International Ireland, in association with Fox Searchlight and New Ireland Assurance, were joined by over 220 guests for the Irish premiere of ‘He Named Me Malala’, the extraordinary story of Malala Youzafsai in Dublin’s Lighthouse Cinema..
Aged just 11, Malala Yousafzai became the subject of Taliban threats and on the afternoon of 9 October 2012, boarded her school bus in the northwest Pakistani district of Swat, and was shot. Three shots were fired. Now just over three years since the attack, Malala continues to advocate that free, safe, quality education is the right of every child.
Because I am a Girl campaign is Plan International’s global initiative to educate girls across the developing world. Across 71 countries worldwide, Plan International identify the key barriers to girls’ education – child marriage, forced labour, sexual violence, early pregnancy and more – and address them from the grassroots up.
Malala’s story is intrinsically linked to Plan International’s Because I am a Girl campaign. Together, we advocate for a girl’s right to education. The world’s largest gender equality movement in Because I am a Girl, and the world’s greatest ambassador for the rights of girls. A shared vision.
Yet the power of Malala’s story is less about her campaign for change, but rather the fact that she is an embodiment of what she, and we at Plan, preach.
Without the education Malala fought so hard for, she would not have been that global voice.
